Nick Leeson

The Rogue Trader

Claim to fame: The man who single-handedly ruined England's oldest bank, Barings, Nick Leeson made such an impession on the media that Ewan McGregor ended up playing him in the movie. In a nutshell, he made some bad derivatives trades which moved the other way on him to the tune of about 1.3 billion dollars (yes, that's with a "b").

Where are they now? As of an interview with the "East Asian Review" in late 2000, Nick was reportedly taking a psychology degree at Middlesex and "waiting for the litigation against the auditors to start". I guess he's suing them for giving him enough rope to hang himself (and the bank). According to the "fade-to-black" in the movie, Barings was sold to Dutch ING Bank for a grand total of 1 pound. Update July/2004: Nick is a "celebrity gambler" now, and is a regular at celebpoker.com where people like you and me can play Texas Hold'em with people like Nick Leeson and Lou Diamond Philips